I would pay 200$ for EW BLM Cash Shop Job

Please bring back EW BLM as a Job. I shouldn't have to, but I'll buy it for 200$. Leave out all the present and future DT changes. Just scale the damage numbers for DT and future content. I don't care if a job is difficult to play. I don't care about you trying to fit in a new more powerful spell every expansion. I need challenging jobs for old, no longer challenging duties. Watching a rare fun job get murdered and being helpless to stop it is extremely depressing. Some people paid a lot of money and time into learning their jobs. Who at SE thinks it's ok to just take them away and replace them with jobs requiring no thought or skill. If players want an easy job there are plenty to choose from. It's like you've forgotten the purpose of having multiple jobs: there is supposed to be a job for everyone, not every job for everyone.

That's actually an interesting idea. If they did this it would give them a clearer statistic on how many people want the jobs to have depth instead of them just guessing based on their marketing teams casual mistakes when testing content.

Unironically same.

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Originally Posted by Hastatus

Please bring back EW BLM as a Job. I shouldn't have to, but I'll buy it for 200$. Leave out all the present and future DT changes. Just scale the damage numbers for DT and future content. I don't care if a job is difficult to play. I don't care about you trying to fit in a new more powerful spell every expansion. I need challenging jobs for old, no longer challenging duties. Watching a rare fun job get murdered and being helpless to stop it is extremely depressing. Some people paid a lot of money and time into learning their jobs. Who at SE thinks it's ok to just take them away and replace them with jobs requiring no thought or skill. If players want an easy job there are plenty to choose from. It's like you've forgotten the purpose of having multiple jobs: there is supposed to be a job for everyone, not every job for everyone.

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Is only a symptom of real problem though. Real problem is continued effort by Devs to make all boss fights into more and more extreme DDR. While this continues, BLMs will continue to suffer more and more. Devs solution to this, sadly, is to change the jobs and not the fights. Mao sad....

I'd do the same for HW Drk, or hell even StB Drk at this point.

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Originally Posted by Eraden

Is only a symptom of real problem though. Real problem is continued effort by Devs to make all boss fights into more and more extreme DDR. While this continues, BLMs will continue to suffer more and more. Devs solution to this, sadly, is to change the jobs and not the fights. Mao sad....

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Yep, exactly this. It's a design decision, depth of gameplay is part of the encounter, not the class you play.

I can see why they do it, it has a slew of upsides, and it also skirts around one of FFXIV's inherent weaknesses due to its abundance of different classes.

Of course, the big downside is that the classes which are already rather shallow as a result of how many there are coupled with the near-exclusive overreliance on static rotation as the base gameplay type of all but maaaybe one class, these classes now end up even more shallow because their failure state is not part of the class mechanics but of the encounter itself. Meh. I mean sure, the encounters are in turn awesome (what got me here after all), and it's not something that could be kept if classes are meant to be deeper again (or alternatively classes are intentionally imbalanced and you are expected to do fight ABC with setup XYZ of classes), but it's a bit annoying it works this way.

Maybe I'm in a more special situation though as MMORPGs have always been exclusively filler-type games for me for something like 25 years at this point (it was different in early EQ1 still). So I don't mind the hyper-casual nature of class design on a gameplay level, just on a conceptual one. But even ignoring that I feel they way overshot the mark at some point, awesome as the encounter design has become in turn. A healthier balance must be found...

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Originally Posted by Eraden

Is only a symptom of real problem though. Real problem is continued effort by Devs to make all boss fights into more and more extreme DDR. While this continues, BLMs will continue to suffer more and more. Devs solution to this, sadly, is to change the jobs and not the fights. Mao sad....

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What suffering? There hasn't been a single fight in years that has had Black Mage suffering. Black Mage has had all the tools needed to keep full uptime on every single fight. It's just a matter of using them.

Or knowing how to use then.

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Originally Posted by SubmarineAlt

What suffering? There hasn't been a single fight in years that has had Black Mage suffering. Black Mage has had all the tools needed to keep full uptime on every single fight. It's just a matter of using them.

Or knowing how to use then.

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Endsinger EX was fairly hostile to BLM and TOP P6 was close to requiring nonstandard, but your point stands that BLM has always had the tools to maintain uptime without special catering from the party.

I think you missed the point being made. The reason BLM is constantly getting easier movement and uptime is precisely because of DDR encounters. That it actually does need them or not is another problem on which we probably agree somewhat.
But it's clear that it's currently being compared to PCT in every way and the changes are hinting in that direction.

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Originally Posted by Hastatus

but I'll buy it for 200$.

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and remember
A B C

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Originally Posted by Eraden

Real problem is continued effort by Devs to make all boss fights into more and more extreme DDR.

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What do you mean by "DDR" ?

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Originally Posted by CidHeiral

What do you mean by "DDR" ?

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"DDR" (Dance Dance Revolution, a line of rhythm video games) or "ballet" are common ways to describe how FFXIV's raid combat feels compared to other MMORPGs. Which is both an upside and a downside, it's a unique sales pitch compared to other games (brought me here, for example), but also something that as it gets more and more extreme as the game ages more and more restricts job design as it takes over the vast majority of playtime during a fight and hence all jobs have to be able to perform these "dance steps" at all times, equally.

What are some examples of fights that aren't "DDR"?

• Hullbreaker and Vanaspati have fights that involve jumping into a bubble.
  
• Hullbreaker has a fight that involves clicking a tree to drop a banana so the gorilla gets it instead of becoming more powerful and angry.
  
• Fractal involves clicking a container to produce some bait to distract them from a powerful attack.
  
• A2 and O6 involve getting into a robot to push things and A5 involves becoming a gorilla to do that.
  
• O6 involves clicking paint brushes and buttons. A5 you stand in purple to become a bird for a certain mechanic.
  
• A4, A7 and A12 have adds that specific people go to kill in special areas and in A7 you help people escape a prison.
  
• O3 and Tender Valley have the maze mechanic.
  
• O2 has mechanics involving gravity and knockbacks and looking at eyes.
  
• O4 had the ice (move around), fire (stop moving), lightning (run out) mechanics. They are elsewhere in the game too and sort of DDR but also a bit different since one of them does involve not moving.
  
• O5 has you guide lights to ghosts, and run atop a train to attack the top of it, and fight ghosts in an add room.
  
• O7 has you stand in bombs correctly.
  
• E5 and Ramuh involve grabbing orbs.
  
• Syrcus Tower involves dragging orbs to beams, freezing people with ice, and unfreezing them with fire. It involves hiding behind a rock and preventing the rocks being destroyed.
  
• Gubal HM involves choosing a puddle to ground you, elevate you or turn you into a Mandragora. Gubal Normal involves dragging an orb to the boss. It also involves walking on pads together as the party and dropping orbs.
  
• Antitower involves becoming dolls and free eachother and healing the AoE damage. Dzemale involves killing Crystals.
  
• Copperbell HM involves dragging boss further across the wood to avoid the fire. At the end you have to bait the sandworm regularly while you fight the boss so it doesn't consume you and do massive damage.
  
• Haukke HM has a boss that consumes an add and does a really powerful attack if you don't focus it before it does. It usually wipes parties due to too much DPS.
  
• Lost City has a mechanic that eats a player and you free them.
  
• Hullbreaker HM also has a mech that involves sliding on ice.
  
• Sohm Al and Amdapor you drag a tether to a rock to save yourself. Amdapor HM has you drop a sword thingy and you need to move out of it (many don't) or free people trapped in adds.
  
• Neverreap you pickup what spawns and move it out of the AoE area or they tether to the boss and make them invulnerable.
  
• WoD has you enter the belly of Cerberus and handle chains.
  
• Labyrinth you stand on pads while others kill adds. Void Ark has a boss involving being on platforms sometimes, not being where certain players were so you don't get turned into a plant. Weeping City has moments you need to stop moving, handle adds that can get overwhelming, keep away from the tank in a tight space, place webs to later stand on to avoid quicksand and place adds that drop as meteors wiping the party if placed wrong, stand in something that you normally avoid, interrupts.
  
• Dun Scaith has you running out of a Doom area, getting knocked back into the ice to save yourself, choosing to enter a mirror area, and introduced the gaze stack that you stack in while looking away.
  
• The Stormblood Alliance raids gave us the maths boss and standing in one part of the arena to avoid being caught in a hurricane. Orbonne had you exchanging tethers (the sort of mechanic exclusive to Extreme or higher now), getting enough players to stand on pads, turning a certain way to avoid being sniped, calculating the safe spot.
  
• E7 had us calculate the safe spots for light and dark while they were going through portals - which still gets some players to this day (destroyed 2 parties today even).

As you can see, this design kinda became mostly in, out, stack, spread or otherwise "move to safe spot" by Shadowbringers. I didn't really notice, personally, but thinking about it that's about where it changed.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

As you can see, this design kinda became mostly in, out, stack, spread or otherwise "move to safe spot" by Shadowbringers. I didn't really notice, personally, but thinking about it that's about where it changed.

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I see, thank you for the clarification. I agree those wacky mechanics are fun, but weren't they mostly moved away from because players complained about them? I think Yoship has mentioned that as being something they're trying to steer back towards with the battle changes. Whether that actually ends up being the case, who knows. These job changes have me feeling pretty dubious about anything they say at this point.

I wouldnt think of those wacky mechanics first.

I'm more nostalgic about things like enemy healers (guildhests), enemies getting damage stacks that you have to manage, adds doing specialized things, enemies you have to balance and keep alive or kill, etc. Best examples are T1, Melusine, Caduceus, Imdugud, Quickthinks Althoughts, Sirius Hard, or even old Gyascutus(Aery) and Raskovnik(Sohm al) that unfortunately were too undertuned for their actual mechanics to shine and be noticeable. And then you also had Leviathan that actually limited healing with that infamous briny debuff.

I also do miss bosses like that have soft enrage mechanics not based on damage stacks or buffs, but that simply blanket the room with more and more AoEs until you cannot survive it, like the Leightonward (Sohm Al hard) or Deathwing Hollow. I like the feel of impending doom they bring, and even ShB had Therion doing exactly this as well.

Personally I want more RPG mechanics and less DDR mechanics.

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Originally Posted by Valence

I wouldnt think of those wacky mechanics first.

I'm more nostalgic about things like enemy healers (guildhests), enemies getting damage stacks that you have to manage, adds doing specialized things, enemies you have to balance and keep alive or kill, etc. Best examples are T1, Melusine, Caduceus, Imdugud, Quickthinks Althoughts, Sirius Hard, or even old Gyascutus(Aery) and Raskovnik(Sohm al) that unfortunately were too undertuned for their actual mechanics to shine and be noticeable. And then you also had Leviathan that actually limited healing with that infamous briny debuff.

I also do miss bosses like that have soft enrage mechanics not based on damage stacks or buffs, but that simply blanket the room with more and more AoEs until you cannot survive it, like the Leightonward (Sohm Al hard) or Deathwing Hollow. I like the feel of impending doom they bring, and even ShB had Therion doing exactly this as well.

Personally I want more RPG mechanics and less DDR mechanics.

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Mao gives thumb-claw ups to Sunie!

sounds great. 200/job was it? i'll take several.

i dont need a few new fancy spells every expansion. this doesnt decide if i like a job or not. having a complete and nice skillset for any content since lvl 70/80 would be awesome